Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia said today its networks division aimed to cut about 900 jobs, or about five per cent of the unit's workforce, by the end of the year in a bid to boost efficiency.
Nokia gave no estimate for the cost savings to be achieved.
The move comes amid generally weak markets for telecom infrastructure, and Nokia said it would mainly affect personnel in network delivery and maintenance functions.
Nokia Networks currently has about 19,000 employees around the world, the company said in a statement.
"The changes are planned to take place gradually and be largely completed by the end of this year," Nokia said.
The impacts would vary from country to country, from a few employees in most countries to around one hundred in some large countries, it said.
The job reductions follow others across the battered telecom equipment industry, which has sought to bring costs into line with weaker growth prospects after years of heady growth.
Nokia has cut earlier jobs in response to the downturn, although nothing like as aggressively as rivals Motorola of the United States and Ericsson of Sweden.
At the end of June Nokia employed just under 53,000 people against a figure of over 60,000 at the end of 2000.